should there be limits to failed Manastone casting destroying objects?

[Plane]

Manastone (M70) follows the usual rules for power stones, including quirks on failures and I assume on a critical failure.

M17 left "A critical failure always destroys the item" for all Enchantments appears to apply since the right column example says "the third gem was shattered in a critical failure"

If you were casting Manastone in a Very High mana environment, where ANY failure is treated as a critical failure, and you did things to penalize yourself to maximize the chances of failure, then intentionally failing with the intent of destroying objects would be pretty simple, allowing someone to try to destroy any object capable of being turned into a manastone over the course of 1 hour using Quick and Dirty Enchantment (Mana Stone's cost of 5 is less than 100)

"Immediate Preparation Required (1 hour)" is a pretty serious (-75%) limitation for a "destroy any object" attack advantage, but that's still pretty powerful if there was some kind of thing with DR 1000 (hardened +120%) item which you absolutely have to destroy for some reason.

Although Manastone is x4 for non-valuable things, stuff with super-high DR (adamantium handcuffs and the like) probably IS going to be valuable, so you wouldn't need the multiplier.

The obvious result regardless of outcome should be that you lose any previous casting of manastone, but I'm wondering if maybe failed enchanting should have some sort of basic damage amount which has a chance to destroy most mundane objects but perhaps might not destroy really durable objects.

At the same time, to avoid people avoiding the risk of lost materials by using durable objects, maybe high DR could penalize the spell somehow, to make it harder to enchant those. The HT roll against afflictions gets a +1 for each DR the target has, so how about just directly subtracting DR from the Manastone skill?

This would make it easier to enchant easily-damaged objects (not desirable) and harder to enchant durable objects (desirable) which sounds like a good idea inherently, regardless of reduced chances to destroy them with failed manastones. The idea is that if you are using less likely to be damaged/destroyed by failure, it's more likely to fail to begin with.

For the mechanics of damage from failure, "Shattered" makes me think of Fragile: Brittle (B136) so what if a crit failed enchantment worked like a Crushing Attack doing damage equal to the energy cost of the spell (so in the case of a 5 energy spell like Manastone, 5 damage) with Symptoms: Brittle occuring if that inflicts 2/3 of the item's HP?

Or if that's too weak, what about dice equal to energy cost, so a 5d crushing attack on a crit fail? My concern with this number getting too high is you might have a problem with a mage trying to turn an expensive vault door into a Manastone to have a high chance of destroying it after an hour's concentration, so it can't be too high or the item won't have enough DR / HP / injury tolerance to stop this.

[PTTG]

Perhaps making a manastone requires essentially opening the object and sealing it back together, so it can't be cast on something you couldn't destroy.

[Plane]

i'm not sure how much DR a diamond would have, but whatever it is, I think a lot of mages would have trouble damaging it. I wouldn't want the inability of damaging diamonds to make it impossible to turn diamonds into a manastone/powerstone

Even though I like the idea of applying DR as a penalty to skill (based on Affliction) to make it harder to do that (to get the desirable outcome of a hard-to-destroy magic item) I don't know that it should require the mage to have damage-dealing capacities to actually damage the item to begin with since enchantment doesn't seem like it would be inherently damaging (only on crit failures).

Manastone isn't exactly opening up a diamond and then sealing it back up again, just casting a spell. The hour minimum spent on enchantment includes some ritual components I think (ceremonial magic) but I don't think goes as far as cracking open and reuniting stones using flaming swords or whatever might be needed to damage diamond.

"Brittle" being the non-dangerous version of Fragile, severe crits might possibly be worst like Flammable/Explosive? I'm not sure how spectacular enchantment failures are meant to be.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Plane

If you were casting Manastone in a Very High mana environment, where ANY failure is treated as a critical failure, and you did things to penalize yourself to maximize the chances of failure, then intentionally failing with the intent of destroying objects would be pretty simple, allowing someone to try to destroy any object capable of being turned into a manastone over the course of 1 hour using Quick and Dirty Enchantment (Mana Stone's cost of 5 is less than 100).

Magic cares about *intent*. If you are casting a spell with the intent to fail, it is not going to work the same was as it would if you were casting it with the intent to succeed. In this case I'd probably have a critical failure makes the object forever invulnerable to any damaging spell you cast on it or something. You aren't trying to produce a manastone, you're trying to destroy the object, so a critical failure should make the object harder to destroy.

[Aldric]

I somehow don't think any GM would let that work. Nice try.
Interesting thought regarding enchanting, but I've always ignored the system as it seems way too complicated for something characters might not even have the time to do.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Magic cares about *intent*.

Agreed. While I wouldn't go so far as to make something indestructible, I would be inclined to simply make the critical failure be something that disadvantages the character in some way; the standard critical spell failure table might be of use here.

Originally Posted by Aldric

I somehow don't think any GM would let that work. Nice try.

I have no doubt there are many GM's who would allow such a thing, even if it significantly derails the campaign.

[Nereidalbel]

"Congratulations on exploding the castle wall. Now, to roll for how many rock fragments just shotgunned you..."

Always a downside to such a plan, especially if your GM is creative on punishing abuse.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Always a downside to such a plan,.

Don't we first need a reason for such a plan? If the GM has not introduced the One Ring to his campaign then there's probably no unwanted item with phenomenal Cosmic DR.

If he has then you need an equally Cosmic means of disposal which failed Enchanting rolls are not.

So, problem solved. "Critically failed Enchanting Rolls do not destroy items with Cosmic DR though they may have extremely negative consequences on the Enchanter.".

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Agreed. While I wouldn't go so far as to make something indestructible, I would be inclined to simply make the critical failure be something that disadvantages the character in some way; the standard critical spell failure table might be of use here.
...

Immune to magic cast by that specific caster, I believe.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

Manastone (M70) follows the usual rules for power stones, including quirks on failures and I assume on a critical failure.

M17 left "A critical failure always destroys the item" f.

Probably would have been better phrased as "renders the item useless to the caster".